Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 28 (IANS) K.S. Chitra, popularly known as South Indian Nightingale, has completed three decades as a playback singer with more than 15,000 songs to her credit. Now she wants to focus on classical music.The 47-year-old has sung for films in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Oriya, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Badaga and Punjabi languages.

Speaking to IANS, her husband Vijaya Shankar, an engineer by profession, said: “She says she will like to continue singing but apart from singing film songs, she would like to concentrate on classical music. Of course, we are all happy the way she has progressed and we don’t think there are any resolutions that have been arrived at as she completes three decades of singing.”

Over the years, Chitra has won six National Film Awards, five Filmfare Awards and more than 30 state film awards.

Born on July 27, 1963, in the capital city, she had her first music teacher in her father after which she was trained by K. Omanakutty in Carnatic music.

Chitra is a post graduate in music from the Kerala University and was first introduced as a Malayalam playback singer by M.G. Radhakrishnan.

Her first singing assignment was for the Malayalam movie “Attahasam” in 1979, but it was released only in 1983. Her first recorded song was a duet with legendary singer Yesudas in “Njaan Ekananu”.

She is the only female playback singer to have sung maximum number of songs for Oscar winning composer A.R. Rahman for Tamil and Telugu movies.

Last year, she sung for more than 40 films in various languages.

To mark her three decades in the industry, she is organising an event Feb 15 along with Asianet Cable Vision.